Today, March 11th, marks the first anniversary of the devastating earth quake and following tsunami that hit the north-eastern coastline of Japan. Many of us will remember how we were first made aware of the disaster by video reports on TV and radio and the total devastation left in some towns.
Rescue South Africa sent over a team to assist in search and recovery of victims who were caught totally by surprise by this quake.
In another interesting report back on the 2004 tsunami and quake that killed more than a quarter of a million people, photographs indicated how islands had actually been pushed up higher out of the water with visible signs that the coastline had increased and that coral reef previously under water was now on dry land.
The report also indicted that this was probably the most severe tectonic plate movement ever recorded in modern times and that some of the tsunami waves were as high as 30 metres.
A quake off the island of Vanuatu on the 9th measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale held very little danger to inhabitants as it was way out to sea and at a depth of almost 32 km. The total number of people residing in the immediate area is around 28000 but no tsunami warning was issued and the waves were only .2m above normal.
An alert has also gone out for tropical cyclone Koji out in the Pacific but it is way out at sea and at this stage poses no threat to any land areas.
Snow, floods and hurricanes have caused havoc in many states across the USA lately and in Europe, temperatures dropped to some minus figures that haven’t been seen for many winters.
Many people died of the cold and although road, rail and air traffic was affected at times, it will probably turn out to be the coldest winter that Europe and Russia have experienced in the past 30 odd years.
Here at home, Hamnet were on alert last week for Cyclone ‘Irina’ which is just raining itself out over the Indian Ocean at present and although the KZN coastline had some heavier than normal rainfall, damage was done in some areas through flooding and trees being uprooted.
Reporting for Hamnet, this is Francois Botha – ZS6BUU.
No comments:
Post a Comment